LA 2028 Gymnastics Overview

LA 2028 gymnastics takes place at Crypto.com Arena in Downtown Los Angeles — home of the Lakers and the same arena that hosts USA Basketball. Artistic gymnastics draws the largest US television audience of any Summer Games sport.

The gymnastics program covers qualification, team finals, all-around finals, and individual apparatus finals across roughly ten days. Qualification sessions are open and longer in format. Finals sessions — the Women’s All-Around, Men’s All-Around, Team Finals, and each apparatus — run in the evening and are the sessions that generate the highest attendance and the most competitive secondary market activity.

Gymnastics at a US-hosted Games carries a specific weight: the combination of American contenders, home crowd atmospheres, and the sport’s broad appeal across age groups makes it one of the defining events of the domestic Summer Games experience.

Sessions & Program Structure

The artistic gymnastics program is divided into four phases: qualification, team finals, all-around finals, and individual apparatus finals. Each phase runs on separate days, with qualification early in the Games and apparatus finals toward the end of the gymnastics schedule. The most attended sessions are the Women’s All-Around and Team Finals, which historically generate the most competitive ticket demand of any gymnastics sessions at the Summer Games.

LA 2028 Gymnastics Venue: Crypto.com Arena, Downtown LA

Artistic gymnastics at the 2028 Summer Games is held at Crypto.com Arena in Downtown Los Angeles. The arena opened in 1999 as the Staples Center and has since hosted the NBA Finals multiple times, the Grammy Awards, major boxing events, and international sporting competitions. It is one of the most extensively used large-scale indoor venues in the United States. For official venue information see the official Crypto.com Arena site, and for competition rules and results see the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).

Crypto.com Arena also hosts basketball during the 2028 Games, making it one of the two highest-demand indoor venues on the entire program. Both programs share the same building, which means groups attending gymnastics and basketball can use the same hotel and the same daily transfer routing.

Downtown LA Location

Crypto.com Arena sits in the core of Downtown Los Angeles, directly adjacent to the LA Live entertainment complex. The area has strong hotel inventory at multiple price points within walking distance or a short transfer. Groups staying Downtown are well-placed for both gymnastics and basketball, and within reasonable range of SoFi Stadium for track and field sessions.

Gymnastics at the Summer Games: History

Gymnastics has been part of the Summer Games program since Athens 1896, making it one of the original disciplines of the modern Games. The women’s program was introduced at the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. Artistic gymnastics — covering floor, vault, uneven bars, balance beam, pommel horse, rings, parallel bars, and horizontal bar — has remained the core discipline, with rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline added in subsequent decades.

The United States has been a dominant force in gymnastics since the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which was the first Games at which the US women’s program established itself as a consistent gold-medal contender. Romania and the Soviet Union dominated women’s gymnastics through the 1970s and into the 1980s, with Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10 at the 1976 Montreal Games representing the most iconic moment in the sport’s history. The US women’s program has continued to produce dominant performers through the 2010s and 2020s, with Simone Biles becoming the most decorated gymnast in World Championships history.

Recent Summer Games Champions

Notable Athletes in Summer Games History

Historic Moments

Nadia Comaneci’s Perfect 10, Montreal 1976

Comaneci’s uneven bars routine at the 1976 Montreal Games produced the first perfect score in competitive gymnastics history. The scoreboard, not designed to display a perfect 10, showed 1.00. The score was corrected on a separate display, and the confusion itself became part of the moment’s lasting narrative. Comaneci was 14 years old and went on to receive seven perfect 10s across the Games.

Mary Lou Retton at Los Angeles 1984

At the 1984 Los Angeles Games — the same city hosting in 2028 — Retton needed a perfect 10 on her final vault to win the All-Around gold medal, which she required to overcome a deficit to Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo. She scored 10. The moment was watched by a record US television audience and remains the most reproduced gymnastics image from the 1984 Games.

Kerri Strug’s Vault, Atlanta 1996

At the 1996 Atlanta Games, US gymnast Kerri Strug vaulted on an injured ankle in the final rotation of the Team Final, landing the vault cleanly before collapsing. The performance secured the US Women’s Team their first Team Final gold. The image of Strug being carried to the podium by her coach became one of the most reproduced sports photographs of the 1990s.

Simone Biles at Paris 2024

Biles returned to the Summer Games program at Paris 2024 after withdrawing from multiple events at Tokyo 2020 citing mental health concerns. At Paris, she won four gold medals and one silver across the Women’s Team Final, Women’s All-Around, Women’s Floor, Women’s Vault, and Women’s Beam, making her the most decorated US gymnast in Summer Games history.

Gymnastics at the 1984 Los Angeles Games

The 1984 Los Angeles Games produced the defining American gymnastics moment of the 20th century in Mary Lou Retton’s All-Around victory. The Games were the first US-hosted Summer Games since 1932 and the last until 2028, making the gymnastics history at Pauley Pavilion — the venue used in 1984 — directly relevant to the context of the 2028 program.

For 2028, gymnastics moves to Crypto.com Arena rather than a university venue, reflecting the shift to existing world-class facilities as the delivery model for the Games. The proximity of Crypto.com to the LA Live district and the Downtown hotel corridor gives the 2028 gymnastics program a different urban context than the 1984 Games, which centered on the USC campus.

What to Expect at LA 2028

LA 2028 gymnastics at a US-hosted Games generates domestic interest that is difficult to replicate at a neutral venue. The 2028 Summer Games is the first US-hosted Summer Games since Atlanta 1996 and the first in Los Angeles since 1984.

US Participation

The US Women’s program has been the dominant force in gymnastics across the 2010s and 2020s, anchored by Simone Biles but with depth across the All-Around and apparatus events. The US Women’s Team enters the 2028 cycle as the defending Team Final gold medalists. The US Men’s program has been less consistently competitive but has produced strong individual apparatus results at recent Games.

International Competition

Japan, China, and the Russian program (competing in some format) have been the most consistent international gymnastics powers at recent Games. Brazil, Romania, and Great Britain have also produced regular medal-level performances. The Men’s All-Around field is genuinely open, with competitors from multiple countries capable of contending at the 2028 level.

Frequently Asked Questions

Other Sports at LA 2028

Gymnastics is one of 32 sports on the 2028 program. Individual sport guides for LA 2028 are listed below.